Originally Posted by
Robert Hazelwood
Do you a sharpen a lot of narrow chisels or carving tools? I ask because flattening oilstones every 2 weeks seems very excessive. I have had my India stone for about 3 years now, and despite being the hardest-worked stone in my collection it is essentially the original thickness. I expect it would last decades of serious hobby use. I do scuff it with a diamond stone to keep the cutting speed up, but it doesn't require flattening. However I am freehand sharpening mostly wider chisels and plane irons and make a point to use the entire stone. I could see where sharpening things like small gouges all the time would wear the stone it in certain areas and require more frequent flattening.
With that said, if you do need to flatten an oilstone then loose silicon carbide grit is a good way to go. If your surface is granite I would recommend using a plastic laminate sheet (available from lee valley) as a sacrificial surface for the grit to embed in. Otherwise I exepct the SiC grit would eat the granite as much as the stone, though if you are careful to use the surface equally you could manage to keep it fairly flat.
I had the same reaction…I used a 8" x 3" x 1/2"-thick India stone for about five years, working close to full time in the shop, and it lost about 1/8" in thickness. I'd normally abrade it once every month or two with the loose SiC on glass. It normally take only 30 seconds to abrade it, maybe a minute at most.
Also, another thumbs up for the plastic laminate sheets. They save the glass, but they also just do a much better job of holding the abrasive grit in place.
Last year I shelled out for an Atoma 400 and I now use that to resurface my Arkansas stones--it's more convenient and less harsh on the stones. I still use the loose SiC on the India stone though, because it's coarser.
"For me, chairs and chairmaking are a means to an end. My real goal is to spend my days in a quiet, dustless shop doing hand work on an object that is beautiful, useful and fun to make." --Peter Galbert